High quality fried food pieces having crispy and chewy crusts with high protein are obtained without the addition of Protein isolates when all kinds of food pieces are dipped in a better containing, as an essential ingredient, highly swollen particles created by dispersing, in an aqueous liquid at room temperature, protein rich washed Moong Dal ground to particle sizes varying from 100 Microns to 1400 Microns.
The major purpose of dipping of food piece into a batter is to prevent their dehydration and absorbing oil and becoming greased during the process of deep frying and to provide a crispy and chewy crust. If the batter is not capable of providing enough water to provide for the water lost during deep frying, water, first, is provided by the food piece and, then, by the batter coating to cause both the crust and the food piece to become excessively dry.
The essential ingredients of the conventional batters are flours such as wheat, corn, rice, barley, peas etc to which are added ingredients such as milk/butter/margerine, eggs, egg whites, egg yolk, tomatoes etc. which do nothing to improve the adhesive or other necessary properties of the batter as discussed in the previous paragraph.
The conventional batters do the job they are intended to do as listed previously poorly. A host of batters have been developed to correct the deficiencies in conventional and or other patented batters. These patented batters may be classified into four broad categories. Into the first category fall batters that are simply designed to ease their manufacture. For example, according to Wesselski et al whose invention was granted a U.S. Pat. No. 4,174,408, simply adjusting the proportion of the farinaceous ingredients in a conventional batter and prepacking them in a dry state so that they can be mixed with water when needed offers distinct advantages to the industry. Ironically, several years earlier Tressler found problem with this batter in that the batter mix causes the batter coating to get dried during deep frying. According to Tressler et al., U.S. Pat. No. 2,623,825, adding 1% to 2% of Tomatoes and apples puree extract to nearly the batter mix patented several years later cures the problem of dry crusts. Incidentally in the second category fall this class of batters that cure dryness of the crust during deep frying by adjusting the proportions of the batter ingredients.
Into the third category fall the inventions that donot try to improve the conventional batters at all but try to cure the dryness of the crust by cutting the frying time. According to Hanson et. al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,169,069, the problem of dry crusts can be solved by partially cooking chicken prior to dipping into conventional batter and deep frying. Several years later, Lenchin et al. was granted a U.S. Pat. No. 4,529,607 for proposing that food pieces be dipped in conventional batter but deep fried only until partially cooked and then microwaved.
Into the fourth category fall scores of inventions that claim to have solved the problem of dry crusts by partially or wholly replacing the raw, untreated starch flours in the conventional batters by Cold water swelling starches or pregelled starches. Cold water swelling starches are prepared by modifying granular starches with chemical reagents to provide a granular, modified food starch which will swell and readily disperse in water at temperatures of less than 120 degrees centigrade. These cold water starches have been invented by several inventors who have been granted Patents by U.S. Patents and Trademarks office. For example Kesler et al., Neukom with two patents each, Harris et al. Tuschhoff et al. and Hanson et al. have been granted U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,516,634, 2,845,417, 2,865,762, 2,884,412, 3,070,594, 3,705,891 and 3,725,386 respectively.
Pregelled starches are prepared by heating an aqueous starch slurry to a temperature above the gelation point of the starch. The gelation point of the starch is the temperature above which the starch granule will swell and burst. Fischer et al., according to U.S. Pat. No. 3,723,137 dipped a prewetted food piece in a pregelled starch and then in an aqueous liquid to create a batter coated product. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,235,385 granted to Cull 7% pregelled starches are added to a mixture of sodium chloride--44.5%, Sodium bicarbonate--22.2%, buttermilk--18.5to 18.7% and either tetrasodium pyrophosphate--7.4% or monocalcium phosphate 3.7% to create a batter that does not have any raw starch and Sodium chloride and puffing agents form over 74% of the batter. Such a batter would create a crust that is very unpleasant to the tongue and very bad for the heart, not to mention the frying oil which would become spoiled after just one frying.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,515 granted to Moore et al., 1 to 40 parts of cold water starch are added to 200 parts of raw untreated starch granules which have a gelation point of more than 125 degrees Fahrenheit and the mixture dispersed in water below 120 degrees Fahrenheit to create what Moore et al. term "batter system containing unswollen starch granules uniformly dispersed within an adhesive matrix of highly swollen, non-birefringent hydrated starch granules"--See "last sentence" of Moore abstract. Which means that Moore finds problems, which are discussed in Cols. 3-9 of Moore Specifications to which reference is made at this time, if percentage of swelling ingredient by weight of non-swelling ingredient falls outside the 0.5% -20% range.
Notwithstanding the arts of the foregoing and a host of other inventions art has not yet been developed to prevent the coating on food pieces dipped in the batter of those arts from getting dried and falling apart in large chunks after being frozen for being consumed at a later date. The cause for this problem is the excessive dehydration of the crust due to evaporation during the process of deep frying rather than the lack of adequate adhesion of the batter as alluded to by Moore et al. That Hansen et al. and Lenchn et al. prevent this problem by reducing the frying time, former by partially cooking the food pieces dipped in conventional batter and the latter by partially deep frying the food pieces dipped in conventional batter followed by microwaving, proves the previous statement. It is therefore an important object of the invention to provide a method of cooking that will make use of a batter whose ingredient or ingredients can absorb larger quantities of water than by ingredients in conventional batters, whose ingredients will need no chemical and thermal modification and which will present no problems if 100% of its ingredients get highly swollen when dispersed in an aqueous liquid.
Furthermore, the foregoing arts are not suitable for all kinds foods. Chicken with bones, beef and pork require thicker highly viscous batter coating containing relatively larger particles and boneless chicken; fish shrimp and vegetables require a relatively thinner batter containing smaller particles. It is yet another object of this invention to provide a relatively simple method of deep frying that creates a chewy and crispy crust and which is applicable to all kinds of foods.
Until now it is necessary to adjust the proportions of starches with amylose and amylopectin contents to achieve a desired color, taste or texture--See Line 52, Col. 5 --Line 11, Col. 6 Moore Specifications. It is an important object of this invention to provide a method of cooking that involves dipping in a batter which needs just one "essential" raw ingredient to create a batter coating of desired texture. The term "essential" is used herein to mean that the batter is complete except for spices and preservatives without the addition of any other ingredients. However, optional ingredients such as any and all starch and legume flours, any and all other non-starch, non-legume ingredients now being used in the conventional batters will not interfere with the essential ingredient and may be added. But the weight of the essential ingredient, in no case, should become less than 25% of the weight of all the solid ingredients used in making the batter of the invention.
The batter fried foods have crusts that have no nutritional value except for carbohydrates. Of course protein isolates have been developed and patented. Some of them could be quite unsuitable for use in the batters due to cooking involved in their preparation which causes them to loose their adhesion. In any case adding isolates isn't the same as using protein rich ingredient. It is, therefore, desirable and an object of this invention to provide a high protein ingredient that can partially or wholly replace the starch ingredients of the conventional batters.
In the past the problem of dry crusts have been solved by the addition of sodium bicarbonates, tetrasodium pyrophosphate or monocalcium phosphate to the extent of 30% of the solid ingredients of the batter to create a puffed up and soft-like-bread crust. It is desirable to have a method of deep frying that does not rely upon puffing agents such as those listed herein. It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a method of deep frying that can prevent dehydration of crust without the addition of puffing agents.
If one looks at the list of the ingredients on the boxes of the fried batter coated products being sold in the market one will find that to thicken the batter gaur gum is being added. It is an important object of the invention to provide a method of deep frying that relies on a batter that can be thickened sufficiently without the addition of gaur gum.
Final object of this invention is to achieve a crust of golden brown color without the addition of artificial colors.
These and other objects, advantages and features of this invention can be seen from a discussion of its specifications and appended claims.